Poets&Quants | The Chinese University of Hong Kong Business School

The CUHK MBA: What You Need To Know

For centuries, Hong Kong has been a place where cultures have collided and combined, and it is still arguably Asia’s foremost trading hub. Politics is never far from the surface in the territory and its recent history has been volatile, but the vibrant feel still attracts go-getters from all over the world and the city is an exciting place to pursue an MBA.

CUHK has a good deal of prestige, too. Its full-time MBA is ranked 50^th on The Financial Times’ global list, placing it sixth in China — and the highest-ranked program not on the mainland. This is a flexible MBA, with the core course running for 12 months, broken down into four terms, but an option to extend by a further term, taking it up to 16 months.

Core courses, of course, dominate the first portion of the program, although — slightly unusually — participants are able to begin customizing their experience right from the start, with electives also kicking off in the first term.

The same blend of foundations and electives continues throughout, with a field trip in either term two or four (though anybody wishing to start their MBA in 2020 ought to bear in mind that all of this scheduling could be thrown out by coronavirus-related travel bans and quarantine rules). Students also undertake a “business practicum,” where they work in groups of three to five on a project in a local business.

Like all MBAs, this one has an international element, too. Business field trips take students to either Germany, to study the European start-up scene, Taiwan to look at social enterprise, Silicon Valley or — newly added — Kazakhstan to look at the impact of China’s Belt and Road Initiative there. Students can go on exchanges to a number of leading global business schools, including CEIBS in Shanghai, London Business School, and the University of Michigan.

Those who choose to extend their MBA to 16 months spend the last (September to December) term either taking an intense course of electives, taking a three- to four-month exchange at a partner school, or transforming their MBA into a double degree from both CUHK and either HEC Paris, RSM, in Rotterdam, of the University of Austin, Texas.

CUHK says that it aims to foster an “entrepreneurial mindset” in its MBAs, with a focus on entrepreneurship and innovation, running courses on both start-ups and venture capital investing. It has a partnership with the Pan-Asia Venture Development Platform (PAVD), “one of the world’s largest venture investment clubs,” which can connect students and graduates with angel investors and venture capitalists across Asia.

However, most graduates go into traditional MBA grad jobs (which isn’t to say they won’t put their entrepreneurial skills to work later on, of course). The top two sectors for grads from the last cohort were financial services, accounting for 36%, and finance/accounting, which took 31%. And while 47% of participants changed the country where they work, this is — as you might expect — a very Asia-focused course. Ninety-three percent of the most recent cohort found jobs post-MBA working in Asia, with the remaining 7% in Europe.